Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=csms20
Social Movement Studies
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/csms20
Black lives matter and imagined futures of racial
dynamics in the US
Simone N. Durham
To cite this article: Simone N. Durham (2024) Black lives matter and imagined
futures of racial dynamics in the US, Social Movement Studies, 23:4, 537-557, DOI:
10.1080/14742837.2023.2204425
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2204425
Published online: 24 Apr 2023.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 520
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Black lives matter and imagined futures of racial dynamics in
the US
Simone N. Durham
Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
ABSTRACT
As the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement fights to build an alternate
future characterized by racial equality and justice, a priority is
studying this projected image of what society could look like and
how oppressed groups and activists who fight on their behalf feel
this might be achieved. This article integrates knowledge from social
movement studies, critical race theory, and futures research to add to
this critical discussion. Specifically, I use the concept of social movement
prospectus to investigate perspectives on future social change
in relation to racial justice activism. Through analysis of interviews
with 36 U.S. Black millennials about BLM and its potential impact on
race relations in the United States, I examine the varied conceptualizations
within this group of what success would look like for this
movement and whether that success is likely to occur. Broadly, I find
that Black millennials are skeptical about BLM’s ability to effect social
change, but are more optimistic when change is viewed in terms of
cultural outcomes than structural ones. I consider the implications of
these perspectives for the future of the movement, as well as for
scholarship that investigates how social movements produce social
change and shape the future of society.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 15 December 2020
Accepted 31 March 2023
KEYWORDS
Social movements; social
change; Black lives matter;
racism; futures; prospectus
It has been over half a century since the Civil Rights Movement, but the struggle to
identify and ameliorate the effects of structural racism and achieve Black1
liberation
and racial equality is far from complete. Today, Black Lives Matter (BLM hereafter)
is a social movement and organization at the forefront of this fight. Initially
a discursive tool for identifying racial oppression, the hashtag ‘#BlackLivesMatter’
became the foundation for the BLM Global Network. Founded by Patrisse Cullors,
Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi, BLM has developed into an international, decentralized,
and local chapter-based movement organization across the U.S. and
beyond. BLM imagines a future in which we have been able to ‘eradicate white
supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities
by the state and vigilantes’ (Black Lives Matter, n.d.). In the current era of
color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2018), this means not only fighting against structural
and overt interpersonal racism, but also against obfuscation and denial of
racism and the ways it continues to shape everyday life and institutional patterns in
CONTACT Simone N. Durham sdurham3@terpmail.umd.edu Department of Sociology, University of Maryland,
3834 Campus Drive, 2112 College Park, College Park, MD
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES
2024, VOL. 23, NO. 4, 537–557
https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2204425
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
the United States and beyond (ibid). This challenge raises the question: To what
extent do people believe racial justice movements like BLM will be able to achieve
the imagined future they strive toward? In a society where racism is widely understood
to be ubiquitous and hegemonic, what impacts do people expect a movement
like BLM to bring about?
In this article, I integrate knowledge from the social movement, critical race, and
futures literatures to provide one answer to this question and discuss its implications for
the movement and racial dynamics within the U.S. To do so, I analyze data from
interviews with Black millennials – those who identified as Black, were born between
1981 and 1996, and currently lived in the U.S – between 2019 and 2020, just before
the second major ‘wave’ of BLM activism beginning in 2020. This group was chosen as
a case to reflect their prominent participation in and organization of this movement
(Garza, 2020; Higdon, 2019). Further, millennials’ high levels of education, disproportionate
identification with liberal ideals, navigation of a ‘colorblind’ society characterized
by covert (rather than overt) racism, and status as the first generation of digital natives
makes them a distinct sociopolitical group with perspectives worthy of concentrated
examination (Jones-Eversley et al., 2017; Milkman, 2017). These interviews are part of
a broader project examining perceptions of, exposure to, experiences within, and impacts
of the movement. In this paper specifically, I examine Black millennials’ answers to
questions about the purpose and meaning of BLM, how it has impacted society thus far
(i.e. up until the interviews concluded in February 2020),2
how they envision success for
the movement, and their vision of BLM’s effect on U.S. race relations in the future. By
doing so, I contribute to our theoretical understanding of the relationship between
imagined futures and social movements, particularly as they are situated within the
existing social structure of society. In the following sections, I provide an overview of
the literatures on social movements, race, and futures research and how they could be
better integrated; describe the sampling, interview, and analysis processes for this study;
detail the three major themes that emerged in my analysis; and conclude by discussing
the scholarly and real world implications of my findings.
Shaping the future: race, movements, and social change
Theorization about social change and the future has been a cornerstone of social science
research since its inception (Schulz, 2016). Futures research encompasses the study of
social life through the lens of ‘fictionality’ – the process through which the mind becomes
occupied with an imagined future state of the world and the beliefs about what will lead
this future state to become a reality (Beckert, 2013). The mental representations (termed
‘fictional expectations’) of the future that people develop in this process then form the
basis for intentional and rational action designed to move toward the desired future state.
Social movements are widely conceptualized as purposeful efforts to promote (or in some
cases resist) changes in a given society (McAdam & Snow, 1997; McCarthy & Zald, 1977).
In other words, they are collective efforts to push society toward a particular envisioned
future. Despite the clear overlap in these topics, futures and social movement research
traditionally have not intersected as much as one might expect. A current push by some
scholars advocates for the integration of these two areas to promote more direct examination
of social movements as agents of change that shape the future of society (Schulz,
538 S. N. DURHAM
2016). This paper meets this call, but with a particular focus on race, racism, and racial
justice movements.
Social movements entail collective challenges by people with common purposes and
solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents, and authorities (Meyer &
Staggenborg, 1996). In other words, those without power engage in social movements
in order to challenge those with power and the power structure itself. Social change
comes in a variety of forms, which are often separated into three categories: biographical,
cultural, and structural or political change. Biographical changes are the consequences of
social movement engagement that manifest at the micro level in the life courses of
individuals (Giugni, 2004). Cultural change includes anything pertaining to symbolic
meaning, narratives and discourse, and beliefs and ideologies that shape human experiences,
attitudes, and relations (Dyke & Taylor, 2018; Earl, 2004). In contrast, structural
change encompasses the tangible transformations in the social environment, such as
institutional processes, laws, and patterns in measurable life chances and outcomes
across social groups (Giugni, 2008). Since structural changes often emerge out of policy
reform, this category is also referred to as political change (Amenta et al., 2010). Social
movements vary in to what extent they pursue and achieve each form of social change.
But in general, studies of social movements largely favor the examination of structural
and political effects (Earl, 2000; Giugni, 2008). In this study, the fictional expectations of
cultural and structural change through BLM are both examined.
Before developing fictional expectations that will serve as a basis for mobilization
efforts toward social change, a particular set of conditions must first be comprehensible
among those who desire those conditions. This means that social movements can be
understood as the embodied collective expectations of social groups about what those
efforts can realistically achieve. This horizon of possibility has recently been termed
‘prospectus’ (Brown, 2016). Prospectus is a useful concept because it expands the conceptual
frame for interpreting the attainability of social change in a given social environment
beyond more established concepts in the literature. For instance, studies on social
movements often reference ‘collective efficacy’ – beliefs about the capabilities of a group
to effectively make political change – as an important factor in mobilization (Beaumont,
2010). Collective efficacy is understood as a direct evaluation of the abilities of
a mobilizing group to be successful in their aims, based on factors such as competency,
cohesion, political representation, and treatment by media (Lee Francis, 2010). However,
as Brown (2016) points out, the conceptualization of collective efficacy takes for granted
that social change is generally possible. In contrast, rather than an evaluation of people’s
abilities, prospectus reflects judgment about whether the social structure of a given
society is changeable in general. Furthermore, prospectus provides a lens through
which we can understand why certain types of social change – biographical, cultural,
or structural/political – may be perceived as possible to varying degrees.
Social movements scholars use the concept of ‘political opportunity structures’ (POS)
to discuss the degree to which the structural organization of a society is amenable to
change (McAdam, 1999; Meyer, 2004). Inherent in this concept is the idea that even
when the POS is ‘closed,’ there is the potential for it to ‘open’ at another time. Collective
efficacy is examined within and fluctuates in accordance with ongoing shifts in this
structure (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996; Suh, 2001). This approach overlooks people’s
overarching sense of imagination about the future and what potential futures can
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 539
reasonably exist. The concept of prospectus, which offers a way of measuring and
comparing this sense of imagined futures, points us to the question of whether there
are types of social change that shifts in a POS simply cannot accommodate even at their
most open, due to the foundational characteristics of that societal structure. If a POS
never seems amenable to restructuring in a particular way, prospectus for change is likely
to be low. This is not a reflection of the efficacy of the group, but an assessment of the
environment in which the group exists. Therefore, the potential power of prospectus as
a determining factor in mobilization should be more adequately considered. This study is
one attempt to do so, specifically in relation to racial justice efforts.
Another key theoretical context for this study is Critical Race Theory (CRT), which
examines the role of race and racism in the foundational construction and ongoing
functioning of society (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado &
Stefancic, 2017). Race is understood to be a product of social thought and relations
(rather than inherent and biological phenomena), and the various racial groups that have
been socially constructed over time are racialized differently, but always in ways that
advance the social interests of those who sit at the top of the racial hierarchy. According
to scholars, the processes of racialization, distribution of resources across racialized lines,
and normalization of these conditions through hegemonic racial ideology result in
racism being embedded in all aspects of the social structure of society and daily life
(Golash-Boza, 2016; Omi & Winant, 2015). Scholars and adherents of CRT are generally
dedicated to subversion of and resistance against this system, with an expressed dedication
to anti-racism (Bell, 1995). In addition, they argue that the experiential knowledge of
people of color who suffer this experience must be legitimized and centered in social
inquiry (Christian et al., 2021; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso & Solórzano, 2005).
While racial justice movements are heavily studied by social movement scholars, the
theoretical frameworks that emerge from these studies have been formulated in a largely
‘colorblind’ manner and tend to neglect CRT (Watkins Liu, 2018). For instance, the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s was a movement that targeted the existing race
relations and structures of the United States. While the concept of the POS emerged from
study of this movement, the concept is race-neutral and does not explicate the role of race
as foundational to the development of society (Bracey, 2016). Race, as theorised in CRT,
acts as an essential axis of domination that shapes social movements and the environments
in which they occur (Oliver, 2017). If scholars are to truly understand how race
shapes mobilization processes, they must consider it as foundational to the horizon of
possibility for social change. By studying BLM – a prominent racial justice movement –
through a CRT lens, this paper offers one remedy to this ongoing issue in the literature.
Linking the concept of prospectus with the principles of CRT can help us understand
how the racial order of a society shapes people’s horizons of possibility for social change
through social movements. According to Brown (2016), prospectus is linked to lived
experience and the understandings of the world produced by those experiences. From
a CRT perspective, racism is an ordinary and everyday experience built into the structure
of society and foundational to one’s worldview (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Golash-Boza,
2016). This suggests that one’s experience and understanding of race and racism in
society would also be foundational to one’s prospectus for social change through activism.
Further, we might expect prospectus to differ markedly based on the extent to
which various groups are subjugated within the existing racial structure. In turn, that
540 S. N. DURHAM
prospectus likely impacts the emergence, development, and outcomes of social movements.
In the U.S. specifically, the racial structure is characterized by white supremacy,
with white people and whiteness occupying the position at the top of the racial power
hierarchy, Black people and blackness at the bottom, and other groups of color marginalized
to varying degrees between them (Bonilla-Silva, 2004; Collins, 2001; Lewis, 2004;
McDermott & Ferguson, 2022). In this study, I examine prospectus among Black
millennials, who are part of the most oppressed group in the U.S. racial order, in order
to explore and test these theoretical ideas.
While not exhaustive, this review of the futures, social movement, and critical race
literatures points to the need for further exploration of how we can best understand the
intersections between these social phenomena. Social movements influence the future,
but how does prospectus – conceptions of what is possible in the future – influence social
movements? And how do social structures of inequality influence this dialectical process?
This study contributes to this effort by integrating concepts from all three areas to
explicate how members of a particular racial group imagine the future of U.S. society
in relation to social movements designed to shape it. Using Black millennial perspectives
on the BLM movement as a case, this study centers the lived experience of the Black
community, accounts for the racial structure of U.S. society that undergirds social
movement activity, and explores how this reality informs their prospectus for change
and the imagined future impact of BLM among this group.
Interviewing Black millennials on Black Lives Matter
This research examines the perspectives of thirty-six Black millennials in the U.S. about
the success, impact, and future of the BLM movement. In semi-structured interviews,
I asked respondents a broad series of questions about BLM to ascertain how they
perceive, assign meaning to, feel a sense of connection with, have learned about, have
participated in, and view the current and future impact and outcomes of the movement.
This paper focuses specifically on the last of these topics by analyzing their interpretations
of: (1) the goals and purpose of the movement, (2) what they would consider to be
success for the movement, (3) whether they think the movement has been or will be
successful in those ways, and (4) what they foresee as the future of BLM. While there is
some overlap or connections across them, the other topics covered in the interviews for
the broader project are beyond the scope of this particular study and not covered in order
to maintain clarity and focus on Black millennial perceptions of the extant and future
effects of BLM. U.S. Black millennials were chosen as the population for this study based
on a theoretic sampling technique, which advocates choosing a study population based
on their ability to provide data that would be most useful in answering research questions
and informing future research and theory building on a specific topic (Warren & Karner,
2015; Weiss, 1994). I operationalize this population based on three characteristics: (1)
identification as Black, (2) current residence in the U.S., and (3) membership in the
millennial generation.
I recruited respondents who self-identify as Black, regardless of citizenship, multiracial
lineage, or immigration status and generations, to account for heterogeneity in the
Black population in the U.S. The sample this study is based on is not representative of the
entire Black population of the U.S. (nor the entire population of Black millennials,
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 541
specifically). However, social characteristics across the sample are varied and represent
myriad perspectives and experiences within this population. In order to capture this
heterogeneity and detail, each respondent answered a set of demographic questions at the
end of their interview. The sample ranges in age from 22 to 35 and is disproportionately
comprised of women, Democrats, politically liberal, and college educated people (specifically
many with postgraduate education), predominantly residing in the northeastern
region of the United States at the time of the interview.3
While all participants are Black,
there is some variation in their racial/ethnic identities. Across other economic, geographic,
and social characteristics, there is a wide range of experiences and backgrounds
(see Table 1 for details).
These varied backgrounds undoubtedly shape participants’ relationship with
Blackness as an identity and the ways they experience that identity. However, they do
not preclude them from identifying and experiencing social life in related ways as a result
of being similarly racialized and categorized into the ‘collective Black’ stratum of the
racialized social structure of U.S. society (Bonilla-Silva, 1997, 2004). The decision to
include respondents of varied backgrounds is also in line with CRT’s (Delgado &
Stefancic, 2017) tenets of anti-essentialism and centering the voices and knowledge of
Table 1. Participant demographic summary (N = 36).
Age Sex Gender Sex. Orientation Race/Ethnicity Org. Region Current Region
22–24: 10 Male: 8 Male: 8 Straight: 26 Black alone: 29 West: 8 West: 5
25–27: 10 Female: 28 Female: 28 Bisexual: 5 Black+: 7 Northeast: 14 Northeast: 17
28–30: 7 Pansexual: 2 South: 6 South: 9
31–33: 5 Queer: 3 Midwest: 6 Midwest: 5
34–35: 4 Outside U.S.: 2 Shift: 13
Education SIC Family SIC Current Income in USD Occupation Political Party Pol. Ideology
Voc/Trade: 1 Uppermid: 5 Uppermid: 5 <25K: 16 Manager/
Professional: 9
Democrat: 28 Radical: 2
(V)
Some College: 3 Middle: 12 Middle: 7 25K-<50K: 8 Serv/Trade: 3 Republican: 0 Progress: 2
Bachelors: 6 Lowermid: 5 Lowermid: 14 50K-<75K: 8 Student: 16 Other: 8 Very Liberal: 11
Some Grad: 6 Working: 11 Working: 9 75K-<100K: 2 Higher ED: 5 Liberal: 13
Masters: 17 Lower: 3 Lower: 1 ⋝100K: 2 Military: 2 Moderate: 8
PhD: 3 Uppermob: 12
Downmob: 24
Other: 1
Notes: Age was collected in years and then organized into five categories representing the full age range of respondents.
The demographic survey included separate questions for sex and gender, both of which could be answered with male,
female, or other in order to capture trans, fluid, and nonbinary identities (although none were present). Sexual
orientation options included straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or other. For race/ethnicity, all respondents identified as
Black/African American; “Black+” represents those who identified as both Black and one or more other racial or ethnic
categories. The region variables are reflected as measured in the demographic questionnaire. The two respondents who
were originally from outside the U.S. originated from Liberia and Spain. “Shift” in region of residence captures the
number of respondents who lived in a different region at the time of the interview than where they were born.
Education was measured across 8 categories from less than a high school diploma to a doctoral degree; no respondents
had less than a high school diploma or GED and none had a professional degree (J.D., MD, etc.). Self identified class (SIC)
was measured across 6 categories from upper to lower class for both respondents currently, and their family of origin.
None of the respondents self identified as upper class either in childhood or currently. “Uppermob” and “Downmob”
capture how many respondents have experienced either upward or downward mobility in relation to their family of
origin. Income in USD is listed as measured in the demographic questionnaire. Answers to the open ended occupation
question are collapsed into categories partially based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO)
categories with exceptions to provide added detail. Political Party is listed as measured in the demographic questionnaire;
those in the other category include independents, democratic socialists, and those with no specific party
affiliation. Political ideology was measured across 5 categories from very liberal to very conservative. None of the
respondents identified as conservative or very conservative, and those who identified as radical or progressive felt that
the five categories provided did not adequately capture their political ideologies.
542 S. N. DURHAM
marginalized racial groups, as well as with BLM’s focus on inclusivity and intersectionality
in representing all members of Black communities (Black Lives Matter, n.d.). To
provide a common contextual basis for interpretation of the movement and its future
possibilities among the sample, current residence in the U.S. is a requirement for
participation in the study. While BLM is a global Black liberation movement, it may be
associated with different social meanings, tactics, and reception in various societal
contexts that differ in their historical record of race relations and current manifestations
of racism.
Respondents in the sample are part of the millennial generation – which Pew
researchers define as those born from 1981 to 1996 (Dimock, 2019).4
When the BLM
movement emerged, millennials spanned the range of young adulthood – the youngest
were just coming of age while the oldest were in the final years of this stage. Members of
this generation cover an age range shown to be more commonly engaged in protest (Earl
et al., 2017), and millennials have already proven to be a primary group engaged in BLM
(Garza, 2020; Higdon, 2019; Jones-Eversley et al., 2017). Further, millennials are more
likely to use social media platforms for social connection and obtaining information
about current events (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). Social media sites, particularly Twitter,
have been integral to the BLM movement’s internal development and tactics, as well as
their communication with and reception among the general public (Carney, 2016; Clark
et al., 2018; Freelon et al., 2016; Nummi et al., 2019; R. Ray et al., 2017; Tillery, 2019;
Wilkins et al., 2019). Millennials’ status as the first generation of digital natives and
related immersion in the social media realm (Milkman, 2017; Palfrey & Gasser, 2008)
makes them a key population of study for research on contemporary social movements
(such as BLM) that strategically use and are widely discussed on social media platforms.
While many respondents have participated in BLM activism, participation in the
movement was not a requirement for participating in the interviews I conducted. This
purposive sampling strategy allows for a more holistic analysis of perspectives on BLM by
accounting for both intra-movement points of view (through those who have directly
participated in the movement) and extra-movement points of view (among those who
have been exposed to but have not participated). By not limiting the sample to organizers
and those who have already been mobilized, as is common in social movement studies,
I contribute to our understanding of the variation in perspectives and experiences that
exist within a singular beneficiary group on behalf of which a movement advocates.
Those who have not participated in a movement but are still tied to it through their social
identity (in this case race) and social exposure even if only through social media
discourse still have important perspectives for us to consider. This sampling approach
also centers the experiences of members of the Black community, a social group whose
perspectives have been historically marginalized by social movement scholars and/or
studied in race-blind approaches as discussed earlier in this article.
Interviews were conducted between March 2019 and February 2020, and therefore
reflect respondents’ perspectives on the state of and future possibilities for the movement
up until that point. Participants were recruited through advertising on social media.5
All
individuals who volunteered during this period were interviewed with one exception –
this person withdrew due to scheduling conflicts. The interviews were conducted in
person for those who lived in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and over the phone
for those who lived elsewhere. Each interview lasted between thirty minutes and an hour
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 543
and a half. All interviews were recorded and later transcribed either by myself or through
a paid automated transcription service called Temi. All of the names used to reference
participants within this article are pseudonyms in order to protect the anonymity of
respondents. Participant descriptions offered throughout the rest of the article are
summaries of demographic characteristics collected directly from respondents in the
post-interview questionnaires. All procedures were carried out in accordance with
human subjects research ethical requirements and were approved by the University of
Maryland College Park Institutional Review Board (approval number 1,402,771–3).
I employed an abductive analytic approach, which involves structuring research based
on extant theory and literature and keeping these ideas in mind throughout the analysis
process while still allowing the data to speak for itself through emergent themes
(Timmermans & Tavory, 2012). Coding and analysis for this study were completed
using NVivo, a qualitative analysis software. Analysis for this study used established
coding techniques in qualitative methods (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012; Charmaz, 1983)
that allow for an iterative analysis process of constant comparison (Boeije, 2002; Glaser &
Strauss, 1967) that gives attention to all of the various ideas that may present themselves
through the data rather than only giving attention to information that fits predetermined
codes. I first engaged in initial line-by-line open coding in conjunction with analytic
memos to make connections between codes present in the data and relate them back to
the interview and research questions. I then proceeded into focused coding to aggregate
initial codes into broader themes that help answer the research questions and illuminate
Black millennials’ current perceptions of and future projections about BLM. Codes used
in this process were descriptive rather than processual (Linneberg & Korsgaard, 2019) in
line with the research aims of uncovering the meanings that Black millennials themselves
construct in relation to BLM and its future.
Black millennial visions of BLM and race in the U.S.6
The foremost finding of this study is the presence of a near-ubiquitous sense of skepticism
about BLM’s ability to enact social change in the U.S. among Black millennials. The
prospectus of this group – their outlook on what potential imagined futures could exist –
was quite limited in relation to BLM. They generally did not envision the U.S. as ever
being characterized by racial justice and equality, despite the movement’s ultimate goal to
produce such a reality.
However, assessments of extant impacts of the movement and prospectus for change
in the future differed based on the type of social change being considered.
Participants perceived the movement as successful in centering Black issues in social
discourse and challenging existing hegemonic narratives about race. Because they pertain
to symbolic processes of meaning making and their impact on social life, I refer to these
impacts as ‘cultural change’ (Dyke & Taylor, 2018; Earl, 2004) throughout the analysis. In
contrast, participants expressed sincere doubts that BLM would bring about legislative or
institutional reforms significant and widespread enough to effectively eradicate racism.
This ultimate outcome – a wide sweeping transformation of the racial hierarchy and race
relations in U.S. society – is referred to throughout the analysis as ‘structural change’
(Amenta et al., 2010; Giugni, 2008). The perspectives of Black millennials in this study
544 S. N. DURHAM
drew a clear distinction between cultural and structural change, and their general
skepticism was largely tied to the latter.
Regardless of their personal background and characteristics, the Black millennials
interviewed in this study believe social change through BLM has been and will likely
continue to be cultural in nature, rather than structural. In the sections below, I present
these themes in detail: general skepticism, positive assessments of cultural change, and
disbelief in the possibility for structural change. I then outline their implications for
scholarship on race, movements, and the future and discuss what they may mean for the
future of BLM in the U.S.
“I’m hesitant to say”: BLM and general skepticism about social change
A clear thread of skepticism emerged in respondents’ discussions of the success BLM has
and will potentially achieve, to the point where some respondents felt they couldn’t
provide a steadfast answer as to whether they see success in BLM’s future. For example,
Kevin (a Black-white multiracial man born at the end of the millennial generation) said
the following about the movement:
Success for the movement would be, honestly, a complete overhaul of how this country
works [laughs] and I think that’ll take a long time. . . . That’s tough to answer [whether BLM
will be successful]. Because like I said we do live in a place that like it’s embedded.. but how
long that can last.. The sooner that we unteach or unlearn what the system has already
placed in our heads, in our hearts, and within our community, the sooner that the actual
changes can happen.
Kevin linked his idea of what success would look like for BLM to his assessment of
whether that success is attainable. He defines true success for the movement as culminating
in a tearing down of the existing social structure of the US and rebuilding it anew. But
he recognizes that this is both a lofty and long-term goal. He cites the embeddedness of
racism within the social structure and culture of the U.S. as barriers to this process. He
notes that change in public sentiments and ideologies related to race must precede more
tangible changes to policy and institutions that would produce racial equality on
a structural level. This aligns with existing research on the simultaneous distinction
between and interconnectedness of cultural and structural change (Bernstein, 2003).
Because of the long roots and pervasiveness of racism, he was at best unsure about
whether BLM will be successful, in either its smaller objectives or its overall goal of
creating a society in which Black lives are valued and cared for.
Similar to Kevin, Angie (a 23 Black and Latinx woman of working class background
pursuing a graduate degree at the time we spoke) was dubious in her projections of social
change as a result of BLM. In discussing change in U.S. policing, she lamented:
It’s kind of like you want to be optimistic and you don’t want to be pessimistic, but at the
same time it’s like.. Can we really stop white supremacy from infiltrating, you know, the
police? Which is like, “eehhhhh.” [laughs]. And I don’t want to be pessimistic when saying
that, but it’s like, what is all that we can do? And also, you know, not having a defeated
attitude but, to what point can we make change? You know? But yeah.
While Angie is referencing a particular institution, rather than the overarching social
structure that Kevin commented on, she still expresses the same skepticism. Her
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 545
description of white supremacy as ‘infiltrating’ the institution of policing reflects the way
the overarching system of racial domination is argued to be upheld through an interlocking
system of institutions, across which the same cultural meanings and ideologies
exist (Collins, 2000; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). In effect, she implies that this arrangement
makes racism inescapable, and that possibilities for social change in race relations
in the U.S. are limited.
Imani7
also expressed skepticism about whether BLM can successfully subvert white
supremacy. However, she goes beyond recognizing the deeply rooted origins and enduring
strength of racism to highlight the direct challenges against BLM’s efforts that impede
its ability to produce change:
I hope. But I am very, very skeptical just because.. anytime a movement seeks to move
beyond the status quo, there is pushback. And that pushback can, you know, it can come in
many ways. It can come in the termination of scholars from universities who seek to engage
in Black Lives Matter ideals on their campuses. It can come in the form of the murder and
executions of the leaders, which has already occurred. Like several people that have been
involved with Black Lives Matter are like just dead. And I’m like, we’re not going to talk
about this?! Like, this is a thing that has happened before!
The perspective Imani offers provides an additional explanation for lack of confidence in
BLM’s ability to produce social change in the U.S. Not only is racism at the core of
contemporary institutions, culture, and social relations as a result of a long history of
white racial domination, but in addition, she suggests, efforts to draw attention to and
change are hotly contested. She argues that people whose life work is designed to bring
racial equality, such as race scholars and activists, are at risk for being discredited,
marginalized, and even killed. In mentioning that this is something that has also
happened in the past, she underscores a history of violently silencing those who attempt
to challenge white supremacy as the status quo.
Collectively, these respondents’ exemplify the general sense of skepticism among
Black millennials in this study regarding the potential to achieve social change through
the BLM movement in the United States. But as the social movements literature demonstrates,
the type of social change a movement seeks has a lot to do with the outcomes it
produces and evaluations of those outcomes by participants and allies. Golash-Boza
highlights the importance of both racial ideology and racial structure to theoretical
understandings of race and racism (2016). The former is intimately related to attitudes,
discourses, and identities (cultural elements), while the latter is associated with institutions,
laws, and measurable inequality (structural elements). The next two sections detail
the prospectus among Black millennials for cultural change versus structural change,
a distinction that is already visible in the quotations presented above, and relate this
prospectus to their evaluations of BLM.
“It’s done so much for us”: BLM and cultural change
Black millennials in this study were much more optimistic about the extant and
future success of BLM when it came to achieving cultural change than structural
change. For example, Kenneth – a 27 year old Black man working in corporate sales
546 S. N. DURHAM
on the west coast – said the following when asked what he would consider success
for BLM:
I think just shedding light on the issues, right? The social injustices. I think that’s what
a successful movement is. It’s like, can you get a large amount of people to stop what they’re
doing, not stop what they’re doing but take a step away from their lives, and look at this issue
that you’re advocating. Right? So I think Black Lives Matter has done a great job of that.
Here, Kenneth identifies BLM as being successful in disrupting the racial ideology of
colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva, 2018) and shifting cultural understandings of the Black
experience in the U.S. To do so, he points to the way that BLM’s efforts have pushed
people to ‘step away from their lives’ in order to see the social injustices that impact the
everyday lives of Black people in a new way. By accomplishing this with a wide enough
section of the U.S. public, he feels the movement has been successful.
Eve – a 33 year old Black woman completing a doctoral program in the Midwestern
U.S. – also credited BLM with producing cultural change in the U.S.:
I think that it’s actually doing what it’s supposed to do, which is holding the country to task,
via specific cities and chapters in specific cities, for focusing on race, in particular BLACK
people and the BLACK community [capitalization to reflect respondent emphasis]. And
centering issues and highlighting issues in the Black community, drawing attention to them,
and thinking and rethinking ways to address those issues. . . . And so I think in doing that
and in continuing to perpetuate and normalize that conversation, Black Lives Matter is
successful.
Just like other Black millennials in the study, Eve argues that BLM has brought race to the
forefront of public discourse about inequality and social change, and highlights this as
a movement success. They attribute the increasingly common attention to racism across
societal spheres – media of all kinds, various levels of the political arena, the consumer
economy, educational curriculums, and micro level social interaction – to the efforts of
this movement. Beyond bringing racial inequality to the forefront of public discourse and
institutions, Eve also cites BLM as effectively keeping it there. In her mind, by ‘perpetuating
and normalizing’ those topics on an ongoing basis, the movement holds those in
power accountable to act in accordance with these expanded cultural understandings of
race and racism. Her perspective also aligns with existing assessments that it is BLM’s
dedication to shifting racial discourse on the value of Black humanity generally that
opens the door for eventual policy reform in areas of social life, such as policing and
criminal justice, in which Black people suffer disproportionately negative outcomes (R.
Ray, 2020). In this way, cultural change is linked to possible future structural change.
Black millennials in this study recognized BLM as achieving cultural change by
interrogating both broad racial ideology and more specific ideas about racial groups,
particularly Black people. For example, Jacob8
expressed:
It’s been successful in continuing and furthering the conversation about the unfortunate
stereotypes and stigma that is Black inferiority in the United States and almost worldwide,
that’s just been embedded in societies that were built by white supremacists. It sucks but it’s
a reality.
Here Jacob points to the embeddedness of cultural ideas about blackness. Hegemonic
racial ideologies, he argues, are upheld through pervasive cultural narratives and images
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 547
that become common sense, taken for granted ideas among members of a society (Omi &
Winant, 2015). In particular, he references what Collins (2000) calls the ‘controlling
images’ that stereotype Black people as inferior, serve as the basis for discriminatory and
dehumanizing treatment, and reinforce white supremacy. From his perspective, BLM has
forced a widespread conversation about the presence and role of these cultural images in
the U.S.
Based on these responses, the Black millennial prospectus for social change is favorable
toward cultural change specifically. In line with findings of other studies on BLM
and cultural discourse (Langford & Speight, 2015; Rickford, 2016), these responses also
support the idea that BLM has already been successful in shifting racial discourse and
logic in the U.S. Disruptions to the existing hegemonic racial ideology are important
because this system of knowledge, values, and beliefs undergirds the entire social
structure (Omi & Winant, 2015). By delegitimizing this ideology, BLM places the white
supremacist racial formation of the United States in question. However, cultural change
is just one side of the coin. In the next section, I examine whether Black millennial
prospectus also encompasses the possibility of structural change.
“I just don’t see it”: BLM and structural change
Despite optimistic perspectives on the cultural changes that respondents cited have
and will continue to be made through the BLM movement, their expressed prospectus
for achieving tangible structural changes (e.g. eliminating racial disparities in police
violence, incarceration rates, and political power/representation) was drastically more
pessimistic. In almost all cases, respondents felt that BLM’s work toward their vision
of ‘a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise’ (Black
Lives Matter, n.d.) would ultimately be unsuccessful. In explaining that position,
many respondents alluded to the sheer magnitude of the task the movement has
taken on and the myriad challenges BLM would have to overcome to accomplish it.
As Adrienne9
puts it:
I think it’s physically impossible to say whether or not the movement would be successful or
not because there’s so many factors that play a role in that. For Black Lives Matter to succeed
you would have to ultimately, uh.. overcome a bigger goal which, you can’t really do
without.. I mean obviously it ties a lot into racism. So if you can’t, they can’t really
accomplish their ultimate goal without eradicating.. racism. Which, you know, is probably
next to impossible.
Here Adrienne essentially waves off the idea of eradicating racism in the U.S. as not just
implausible but impossible, and therefore outside of her prospectus for change. In citing
the wide range of ‘factors,’ she draws attention to the long list of structural inequalities
faced by Black people that play a role in producing the conditions BLM is trying to
address. She implies that the task the movement has taken on – addressing and ending
racial inequality across all organizations, institutions, and social outcomes – is one that is
simply too large to truly be accomplished. Based on her statements and similar ones by
other respondents, the POS (McAdam, 1999; Meyer, 2004) of the United States lacks any
opening for significant change in the area of race relations. Her stance is supported by
one of the oldest arguments of critical race scholars – that racism is permanent (Bell,
548 S. N. DURHAM
1992) and cannot be eliminated within the confines of our existing society. However, as
extant scholarship shows, it’s not unusual for marginalized groups to still mount challenges
in the face of a closed POS (Einwohner, 2003).
Danielle, a 24-year old woman pursuing her PhD at the time of our interview,
also sees lasting structural change through BLM as unattainable. Specifically, she
points out that social change is not linear and movement outcomes do not always
last:
I think of it very similar to the Civil Rights Movement in which, I mean there were wins and
losses and then a subsequent backlash and.. Or a white lash rather.. and more losses. So
I think that that’s how it’s going to have to be. I mean success? Will it have success? Mmm..
No, probably not. I hate to be pessimistic, but I’m also just recognizing the history of the
United States of America.
By drawing on her knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, Danielle highlights that
appearances can be deceiving when it comes to social movements and their success.
Specific changes may be achieved at any time. For instance, BLM activism has caused
reforms to police procedures to be signed into law in some states (Black Lives Matter,
2018; Campbell & Nuyen, 2020; Gruber-Miller & Richardson, 2020). Yet these changes
have not been unopposed, with many examples of simultaneous efforts to undo such
changes or nullify these gains. This is demonstrated by recent attacks on voting rights in
Georgia which disproportionately affect Black voters (Griffith, 2022), despite these rights
being cemented by constitutional amendments two centuries ago. Recognition of these
processes have led some critical race scholars to critique what they call the ‘racial progress
paradigm’ (Christian et al., 2019; V. Ray et al., 2017; Seamster & Ray, 2018). They argue
that because the structures and mechanisms of white supremacy are adaptable and shift
in response to challenges mounted against them, focusing on gradual advancement
toward racial equality through a series of small steps over time is a misleading narrative
and a futile approach. Danielle’s perspective also points to the important distinction
between prospectus and collective efficacy. By asserting that there will be wins, she
demonstrates collective efficacy (Beaumont, 2010) – a belief in BLM’s capability to
achieve political change on behalf of Black people. However, lasting structural change
is still outside of her sense of prospectus, reflecting the fact that social change is
constrained by factors outside of BLM’s control.
Similarly, in the context of expressing the implausibility of structural change, Ashley
(a 28 year old Black woman who was pursuing her PhD at the time of her interview)
discusses the difficulty of even imagining a future in which racism no longer exists. She
said:
This kind of brings it back to the structure. I think it’s hard to know exactly what the overall
goal was and what that would look like. People will say things like, “we want Black
liberation” or “we want economic liberation,” but it’s hard to really know . . . Okay, but
what does that look like? Especially when we’ve never had it. You know what I’m saying?
And yeah, I agree with a lot of people that like there’s power in imagining things, but like
I said, if you don’t know, if you’ve never seen it, it’s hard to know what that would look like.
Ashley’s perspective is that the racial oppression that has constrained the well-being and
progression of the Black community also constrains the imagination. She argues that
because liberation – social, political, economic, or all of the above – has never existed for
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 549
Black people in America, it is hard to imagine how liberation would manifest. In another
example, Maddie10
states in her interview that BLM would likely exist until liberation is
achieved for all Black people. When I followed up and asked what liberation looks like,
her answer reflects a lack of clarity similar to Ashley’s, yet a sense of urgency about the
need to try to imagine.
I actually just finished reading this book called “Black Freedom” by Robin D.G. Kelley
[actually titled Freedom Dreams]. And this was kind of what he’s talking about. Like what
could Black liberation look like? And talking about giving ourselves the space and the
opportunity to dream up what that would look like and then mapping out a plan to do so.
But it does take all being on one page. And so I think that because liberation still does not
have a collective meaning for black people. I don’t know. . . . But we have to come together to
understand what that collective liberation place would look like.
In this response, Maddie suggests that Black radicals have already been actively engaged
in ‘freedom dreaming’ (Kelley, 2002) about a future without racial subjugation and
theorizing on its possibility. But based on these data, translating those dreams into reality
has not yet become possible. Because a reality characterized by Black liberation is hard to
imagine, it remains even more difficult to develop and put into action a plan to achieve it,
or to perceive the development and implementation of a plan of that nature as
a possibility. As a result, the prospectus of Black millennials in this study does not
include structural change through racial justice activism.
Conclusion
This paper contributes to the discussion about the potential for activism to produce social
change through a necessary examination of prospectus – the overarching perceptions of
what is possible in the future. In particular, it integrates CRT and concepts from the
social movements literature to examine how race as an organizing principle of social life
shapes these processes. Through an analysis of interviews with 36 Black millennials about
their perspectives on BLM, I demonstrate the way that perceived possibility of social
change is linked to understandings of the social structure of the society in which one
exists, as well as the forms and manifestations of inequality that result from that
structure. Respondents understood racism to be embedded in all US institutions and
a foundational element of all aspects of social life. This in turn means that perceptions of
possibility for transformation varied by what type of social change is being considered.
I found that respondents were broadly skeptical about BLM’s ability to produce social
change in the U.S. Upon further examination, this general skepticism was largely rooted
in their prospectus for structural change, rather than cultural change. Despite consistent
acknowledgement of BLM’s significant impact on racial discourse, ideology, and stereotypes,
however, these Black millennials were not optimistic about the future of American
race relations. They were also unable to envision a future in which the U.S. is not
characterized by substantial racial inequality across social outcomes and experiences,
particularly for Black people.
These future projections provide insight into the perceived challenges facing the Black
community and those mobilized in the fight for racial equality and Black liberation. In
terms of providing an answer to Schulz’s (2016) question of ‘who shapes the future with
550 S. N. DURHAM
what means, how and why?’ (pp. 98), the pessimism around possibilities of transformation
by BLM or any other movement that would follow in its footsteps is significant. If the
collective expectation of the Black community is that we are doomed to live with racism
indefinitely, what does that mean for the strength and utility of these forms of resistance?
How will Black liberation be obtained if it cannot be imagined? Some Black millennials,
like Maddie, may already be ahead of the curve in efforts to answer this question and steer
activists and scholars alike in the right direction. When I asked whether she thinks the
movement will successfully achieve this elusive outcome, she said:
Probably not in this lifetime. I don’t believe. And that’s not to be pessimistic. I think that,
you know, liberation is about the long haul. And if we think about how long the world has
been in existence, how long Black people have been oppressed.. [scoffing laugh] We ain’t
achieving liberation in my lifetime. And that’s okay, because I don’t work for my lifetime,
I work for the lifetime to come after us. So we in this for the long haul.
Data collection for this study concluded in February 2020. That summer, the successive
deaths of multiple unarmed Black people at the hands of both police and civilians sparked
a resurgence and spread of the BLM movement that propelled it to the status of the
largest social movement in U.S. history (Buchanan et al., 2020; Wright, 2020). In addition
to their prevalence, protest responses to the highly publicized cases of George Floyd,
Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade included a significantly larger and
more diverse group of people than previous BLM protest waves (Fisher, 2020; McAdam,
2020). The U.S. uprising also sparked protests of solidarity as well as in response to local
racism in countries across the globe (Kirby, 2020). These mobilisations may have
significantly impacted Black millennial prospectus for the future in relation to the
movement and what it can accomplish. However, despite continued protest activity
through 2020 and beyond, the increased levels of support for the movement outside
the Black community appeared to wane and returned to previous levels by
September 2020 (Horowitz, 2021). Just as the intensity of this protest wave may have
improved fictional expectations and projections for the future, the subsequent drop off in
activism and support may have eroded them. Further research into the circumstances in
which BLM (and other racial justice movements) take place fluctuate over time are
important to understanding the relationship between movements, race relations, and
the future of society.
Notes
1. I capitalize ‘Black’ throughout this article while choosing not to capitalize ‘white’ because
I conceptualize Black people in the U.S. as a distinct racialized cultural group resulting from
and treated based on the history of marginalization originating with chattel slavery. I do not
capitalize ‘white’ because white people in the U.S. often maintain ties to specific ethnic
group identities from their country of origin in ways that Black people are often unable to do
as a result of this violent history. Further, the attachment to ‘white’ as an identity implies an
upholding of white supremacy in a manner that capitalizing ‘Black’ does not in the context
of this history. This choice in capitalization reflects an intentional dedication to anti-racism
and the centering of Black voices as experts on their own experience in a social system
characterized by white domination. It also aligns with my membership in this cultural
group.
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 551
2. Completion of these interviews occurred prior to the resurgence and growth of the BLM
movement in the summer of 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna
Taylor, and other unarmed Black people in close succession. The impact of the timing of
these data on the findings and implications of this research will be addressed in the
discussion section.
3. While the overall sample was chosen through a theoretical sampling frame, the actual
recruitment of participants was performed through convenience sampling methods and
relied on social media networks emerging from my own social location. This largely explains
the geographic and educational backgrounds of the respondents. Variation in interviewees’
backgrounds were not associated with significant differences in responses relevant to
prospectus and evaluations of movement success.
4. One of the participants slightly defies this definition. Upon collecting demographic
data at the end of Kevin’s interview, I became aware that he was born in
January 1997, but he volunteered for the study because he identifies as part of the
millennial generation (rather than Gen-Z). Given his identification, the comparability
of his answers to the rest of the sample, that he was born only slightly beyond the
1996 cutoff, and the myriad factors that influence how researchers and historians
subjectively ‘define’ generations (Pew Research Center, 2015) he was not eliminated
from the sample.
5. Use of social media networks for participant recruiting undoubtedly shaped the sample for
this study. As a Black HBCU graduate and current PhD student, my network disproportionately
represents these statuses. Therefore, certain characteristics, particularly pursuit of
postgraduate education, are representative of my sample but not wholly representative of
the Black millennial population in general.
6. Quotations in this section are drawn directly from the words of the respondents, but
presented in a way that provides clarity for the reader. Supporting contextual information
is inserted in brackets (‘[text]’). Interviews were open ended with many clarifying
questions and returns to certain topics at different times throughout interviews.
Ellipses (‘. . .’) between sentences included within the same block quote are used to
indicate synthesis of statements on the same topic from different points in the
interviews.
7. Imani is a Black woman who works as an assistant professor at a university in the southern
region of the U.S. She is an older millennial and was thirty-three at the time of the interview.
8. Jacob is a Black man who at the time of the interview was 24 years old and in graduate
school.
9. Adrienne is a 25-year-old Black woman who was both in college and working full time in the
customer service sector at the time we spoke.
10. Maddie is a queer Afro-Caribbean woman who has a master’s degree, works in higher
education student affairs, and was 27 at the time of the interview.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my interview participants for their time and valuable insights that made this
work possible. I would also like to thank every scholar who has given feedback on various versions
of this paper, particularly the anonymous reviewers for the journal. Lastly, thank you to both the
Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of ASA and the DC Sociological Society for
awarding previous versions of this paper in your student paper competitions.
Disclosure statement
The author has no known conflicts of interest to report.
552 S. N. DURHAM
Funding
This work was supported by a grant from The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and
a dissertation fellowship from The Graduate School at the University of Maryland, College Park
Notes on contributor
Simone N. Durham is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland, College
Park. She is also a two-time graduate and adjunct faculty member in sociology at Morgan State
University. Her research agenda includes work on race, social movements, and social psychological
processes. Her current research and dissertation examine the Black Lives Matter movement
in the United States.
ORCID
Simone N. Durham http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0145-9692
References
Amenta, E., Caren, N., Chiarello, E., & Su, Y. (2010). The political consequences of social
movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 36(1), 287–307. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc
-070308-120029
Beaumont, E. (2010). Political agency and empowerment: Pathways for developing a sense of
political efficacy in young adults. In L. R. Sherrod, J. Torney-Purta, & C. A. Flanagan (Eds.),
Handbook of Research on Civil Engagement in Youth (pp. 525–558). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Beckert, J. (2013). Imagined futures: Fictional expectations in the economy. Theory and Society, 42
(3), 219–240. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-013-9191-2
Bell, D. A. (1992). Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. Basic Books.
Bell, D. A. (1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory? University of Illinois Law Review, 1995(4),
893–910.
Bernstein, M. (2003). Nothing ventured, nothing gained? Conceptualizing social movement
“success” in the lesbian and gay movement. Sociological Perspectives, 46(3), 353–379. https://
doi.org/10.1525/sop.2003.46.3.353
Black Lives Matter. (2018, October 1). Victory: the “Right to Know” bill on police transparency is
signed into California law. Black Lives Matter. https://blacklivesmatter.com/victory-the-right-to
-know-bill-on-police-transparency-is-signed-into-california-law/
Black Lives Matter. (n.d.). About. https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
Boeije, H. (2002). A Purposeful Approach to the Constant Comparative Method in the Analysis of
Qualitative Interviews. Quality & Quantity, 36(4), 391–409. https://doi.org/10.1023/
A:1020909529486
Bonilla-Silva, E. (1997). Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation. American sociological
review, 62(3), 465–480. https://doi.org/10.2307/2657316
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2004). From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in
the USA. Ethnic and racial studies, 27(6), 931–950. https://doi.org/10.1080/
0141987042000268530
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial
Inequality in America (5th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.
Bracey, G. E., II. (2016). Black Movements Need Black Theorizing: Exposing Implicit Whiteness in
Political Process Theory. Sociological focus, 49(1), 11–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.
2015.1067569
Brown, K. P. (2016). The prospectus of activism: discerning and delimiting imagined possibility.
Social movement studies, 15(6), 547–560. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2016.1191338
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 553
Buchanan, L., Quoctrung, B., & Patel, J. K. (2020, July 3). Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest
Movement in U.S. History. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/
07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html
Campbell, B., & Nuyen, S. (2020June11). No-Knock Warrants Banned In Louisville In Law Named
For Breonna Taylor. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice
/2020/06/11/875466130/no-knock-warrants-banned-in-louisville-in-law-named-for-breonna-
taylor
Carney, N. (2016). All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of
Social Media. Humanity & Society, 40(2), 180–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160597616643868
Charmaz, K. (1983). The Grounded Theory Method: An Explication and Interpretation.
Contemporary Field Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800407308907
Charmaz, K., & Belgrave, L. L. (2012). Qualitative Interviewing and Grounded Theory Analysis. In
J. F. Gubrium, J. A. Holstein, A. B. Marvasti, & K. D. McKinney (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of
Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (pp. 347–365). Sage Publications, Inc.
Christian, M., Seamster, L., & Ray, V. (2019). New Directions in Critical Race Theory and
Sociology: Racism, White Supremacy, and Resistance. The American behavioral scientist, 63
(13), 1731–1740. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219842623
Christian, M., Seamster, L., & Ray, V. (2021). Critical Race Theory and Empirical Sociology. The
American behavioral scientist, 65(8), 1019–1026. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219859646
Clark, A. D., Dantzler, P. A., & Nickels, A. E. (2018). Black Lives Matter: (Re)Framing the Next
Wave of Black Liberation. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 42, 145–172.
https://doi.org/10.1108/s0163-786x20180000042006
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Collins, P. H. (2001). Like one of the family: Race, Ethnicity, And the paradox of US national
identity. Ethnic and racial studies, 24(1), 3–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/014198701750052479
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (1995). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings
That Formed the Movement. The New Press.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (3rd ed.). New York
University Press.
Dimock, M. (2019, January 17). Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z
Begins. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-
millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/
Dyke, N., & Taylor, V. (2018). The Cultural Outcomes of Social Movements. In D. A. Snow,
S. A. Soule, H. Kriesi, & H. J. McCammon (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social
Movements (2nd, pp. 482–498). John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/
9781119168577.ch27
Earl, J. (2000). Methods, Movements and Outcomes: Methodological Difficulties in the Study of
Extra-Movement Outcomes. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 22, 3–25.
Earl, J. (2004). The Cultural Consequences of Social Movements. In D. A. Snow, S. Soule, &
H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 508–530). Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.
Earl, J., Maher, T. V., & Elliott, T. (2017). Youth, Activism, and Social Movements. Sociology
Compass, 11(4), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12465
Einwohner, R. L. (2003). Opportunity, Honor, and Action in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.
The American journal of sociology, 109(3), 650–675. https://doi.org/10.1086/379528
Fisher, D. R. (2020, July 8). The Diversity of the Recent Black Lives Matter Protests is a Good Sign
for Racial Equity. The Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise
/2020/07/08/the-diversity-of-the-recent-black-lives-matter-protests-is-a-good-sign-for-racial-
equity/
Freelon, D., McIlwain, C. D., & Clark, M. (2016). Beyond the Hashtags: #Ferguson,
#Blacklivesmatter, and the Online Struggle for Offline Justice. Center for Media & Social
Impact. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2747066
554 S. N. DURHAM
Garza, A. (2020). The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. One World
Publishing.
Giugni, M. (2004). Personal and Biographical Consequences. In D. A. Snow, S. Soule, & H. Kriesi
(Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 489–507). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Giugni, M. (2008). Political, Biographical, and Cultural Consequences of Social Movements.
Sociology Compass, 2(5), 1582–1600. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00152.x
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative
Research. Aldine Transaction.
Golash-Boza, T. (2016). A Critical and Comprehensive Sociological Theory of Race and Racism.
Sociology of race and ethnicity, 2(2), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649216632242
Griffith, J. (2022, March 2). ‘We’re very concerned’: Black voters fear changes to Georgia voting
laws. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/-concerned-black-voters-fear-
changes-georgia-voting-laws-rcna17391
Gruber-Miller, S., & Richardson, I. (2020, June 12). ‘We are ready and willing to act’: Gov. Kim
Reynolds signs law banning most chokeholds, addressing police misconduct. Des Moines
Register. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/12/police-
misconduct-chokehold-law-governor-kim-reynolds-sign-black-lives-matter-george-floyd
/5347514002/
Higdon, N. (2019). Rallying Over Balloting: The Origins of Millennial Activism. Journal of Critical
Thought and Praxis, 8(1), 12–29.
Horowitz, J. M. (2021, September 27). Support for Black Lives Matter declined after George Floyd
protests, but has remained unchanged since. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.
org/fact-tank/2021/09/27/support-for-black-lives-matter-declined-after-george-floyd-protests-
but-has-remained-unchanged-since/
Jones-Eversley, S., Adedoyin, A. C., Robinson, M. A., & Moore, S. E. (2017). Protesting Black
Inequality: A Commentary on the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter. Journal of
community practice, 25(3–4), 309–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2017.1367343
Kelley, R. D. G. (2002). Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press.
Kirby, J. (2020, June 12). “Black Lives Matter” has become a global rallying cry against racism and
police brutality. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21285244/black-lives-matter-global-
protests-george-floyd-uk-belgium
Langford, C. L., & Speight, M. (2015). #BlackLivesMatter: Epistemic Positioning, Challenges, and
Possibilities. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, 5(3/4), 78–89.
Lee Francis, L. F. (2010). The Perceptual Bases of Collective Efficacy and Protest Participation: The
Case of pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong. International Journal of Public Opinion
Research, 22(3), 392–411. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edq023
Lewis, A. E. (2004). What group?” Studying whites and whiteness in the era of “color-blindness.
Sociological Theory, 22(4), 623–646. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00237.x
Linneberg, M. S., & Korsgaard, S. (2019). Coding qualitative data: a synthesis guiding the novice.
Qualitative Research Journal, 19(3), 259–270. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-12-2018-0012
McAdam, D. (1999). Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (2nd
ed.). University of Chicago Press.
McAdam, D. (2020, June 20). We’ve Never Seen Protests Like These Before. Jacobin. https://
jacobinmag.com/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-black-lives-matter-riots-demonstrations
McAdam, D., & Snow, D. (1997). Introduction - Social movements: conceptual and theoretical
issues. In D. McAdam & D. Snow (Eds.), Social Movements (pp. 18–26). “Introduction. Social
Movements: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues.” Roxbury Publishing Company.
McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). resource mobilization and social movements: A Partial
Theory. The American journal of sociology, 82(6), 15–46. https://doi.org/10.1086/226464
McDermott, M., & Ferguson, A. (2022). Sociology of Whiteness. Annual review of sociology, 48,
257–276. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-083121-054338
Meyer, D. S. (2004). Protest and Political Opportunities. Annual review of sociology, 30(1),
125–145. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110545
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 555
Meyer, D. S., & Staggenborg, S. (1996). Movements, countermovements, and the structure of
political opportunity. The American journal of sociology, 101(6), 1628–1660. https://doi.org/10.
1086/230869
Milkman, R. (2017). A New Political Generation: Millennials and the Post-2008 Wave of Protest.
American sociological review, 82(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122416681031
Nummi, J., Jennings, C., & Feagin, J. (2019). #BlackLivesMatter: Innovative Black Resistance.
Sociological Forum, 34(S1), 1042–1064. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12540
Oliver, P. (2017). The Ethnic Dimensions in Social Movements. Mobilization: An International
Quarterly, 22(4), 395–416. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-22-4-395
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2015). Racial Formation in the United States (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives.
Basic Books.
Perrin, A., & Anderson, M. (2019, April 10). Share of U.S. Adults Using Social Media, Including
Facebook, is Mostly Unchanged Since 2018. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.
org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-media-including-facebook-is-
mostly-unchanged-since-2018/
Pew Research Center. (2015, September 3). The Whys and Hows of Generations Research. https://
www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/09/09-3-2015-Generations-
explainer-release.pdf
Ray, R. (2020). Setting the record straight on the Movement for Black Lives. Ethnic and racial
studies, 43(8), 1393–1401. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2020.1718727
Ray, R., Brown, M., Fraistat, N., & Summers, E. (2017). Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown
on Twitter: #BlackLivesMatter, #TCOT, and the evolution of collective identities. Ethnic and
racial studies, 40(11), 1797–1813. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1335422
Ray, V. E., Randolph, A., Underhill, M., & Luke, D. (2017). Critical Race Theory, Afro-Pessimism,
and Racial Progress Narratives. Sociology of race and ethnicity, 3(2), 147–158. https://doi.org/10.
1177/2332649217692557
Rickford, R. (2016). Black Lives Matter: Toward a Modern Practice of Mass Struggle. New Labor
Forum, 25(1), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1095796015620171
Schulz, M. S. (2016). Social Movements and Futures Research. World Futures Review, 8(2), 98–107.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1946756716634310
Seamster, L., & Ray, V. (2018). Against Teleology in the Study of Race: Toward the Abolition of the
Progress Paradigm. Sociological Theory, 36(4), 315–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0735275118813614
Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an
Analytical Framework for Education Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/
10.1177/107780040200800103
Suh, D. (2001). How Do Political Opportunities Matter for Social Movements?: Political
Opportunity, Misframing, Pseudosuccess, and Pseudofailure. The Sociological quarterly, 42(3),
437–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2001.tb02409.x
Tillery, A. B. (2019). What Kind of Movement is Black Lives Matter? The View from Twitter.
Journal of Race, Ethnicity, & Politics, 4(2), 297–323. https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2019.17
Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2012). Theory Construction in Qualitative Research. Sociological
Theory, 30(3), 167–186. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275112457914
Warren, C. A. B., & Karner, T. X. (2015). Discovering Qualitative Methods: Ethnography,
Interviews, Documents, and Images (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Watkins Liu, C. (2018). The Anti-Oppressive Value of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality
in Social Movement Study. Sociology of race and ethnicity, 4(3), 306–321. https://doi.org/10.
1177/2F2332649217743771
Weiss, R. S. (1994). Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies.
The Free Press.
556 S. N. DURHAM
Wilkins, D. J., Livingstone, A. G., & Levine, M. (2019). Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions of
social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement. British Journal of Social
Psychology, 58(4), 786–805. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12318
Wright, M. (2020, July 3). Black Lives Matter Protests May Be the Largest in U.S. History as More
Than 26 Million Americans Have Been at the More Than 4,700 Demonstrations Around the
Country. Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8488409/BLM-protests-largest
-U-S-history-26MILLION-Americans-attended.html
Yosso, T. J., & Solórzano, D. G. (2005). Conceptualizing a Critical Race Theory in Sociology. In
M. Romero & E. Margolis (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities (pp. 117–146).
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996973.ch7
SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES 557